Rosier laughed so hard that his huge bulk almost fell back off the stool, and he had to grab hold of the bar to steady himself. A button popped off his shirt in the process, but he didn't seem to notice or just didn't care as it hit the floor and rolled away, the gap in his shirt widening to reveal even more of his pudgy belly.

Oscar wasn't laughing though.

He stood, with his hands braced on the bar, sinewy muscles flexing in his forearms as his dark gaze remained firmly fixed on Ethan.

'No,' he said, his lips thin, his cheek muscles twitching.

It was such a simple word and yet when Oscar said it, I felt a force behind it, something dark and menacing, like watching the winding twister of a tornado heading straight towards you, ready to sweep you up into its violent chaos.

Beside me, Ethan was like granite, unmoved by the tumultuous waves of Oscar's anger. If anything, he seemed almost amused by it, the glint of a challenge in his eyes.

'Come on, Berith, what's the problem here?' he said. 'You've got enough to worry about having to kick-start your little empire again. You need Casey to go off radar and I can do that.'

'Rosier can do it.'

'Not better than I can.' Ethan shrugged. 'Besides, he doesn't even want to take her.'

Rosier, whose laughter had turned into a hacking cough befitting a forty-a-day smoker, and whose face had turned an alarming shade of violet, held up his hand in protest. 'Now, wait a bloody minute, boy,' he wheezed, between coughs. 'I never said I didn't want to take her on. I merely stated that it would be a risk.'

'And one you don't have to take, because I'll be doing it for you.'

'No, you bloody won't.' Oscar slammed his fist down on the bar counter. The sound made me flinch, but the way in which the air about him darkened, with black smoke-like tendrils thickening the shadows, had me taking an instinctual step back.

I knew Oscar wasn't the Oscar I had always thought him to be. Any notion I'd held that he was just your average East-End gangster had been wiped away, as if that Oscar really had been nothing but an over-exaggerated caricature from a movie I'd once seen. But seeing what he was – and whatever the fuck that was, I still didn't really know – seeing the evidence right there in front of my eyes was a jolt to the system that I definitely hadn't expected. How many times had I sat in his office? Chatted business with him? Went through the motions of the same old conversations about Maggie and Rita May and Davey and you're looking cracking today, sweetheart, absolutely knock-out. I'd never seen the real creature behind the mask. Not once.

I saw it now. And I saw the way Ethan cocked his head to one side, because he saw it too. Of course, he did. Maybe he'd even expected Oscar to crack, because there was no fear there, no move to defend himself. Instead, he just raised a brow and stared right back.

'You and I both know this whole thing stinks of Michael,' Ethan said. 'If you don't hand Casey over to the Council, dead or alive, he's going to know what you've done, and he'll make sure your balls are dangled into boiling hot lava for an eternity, and that's even after they've found Rosier.' His disgusted gaze flitted to the man at the bar. 'Which they will, by the way. If you think Michael's oblivious to your business deals with our fat friend here, you're truly fucking insane.'

'Don't you overstep the fucking mark!' Oscar raged, jabbing his finger at Ethan.

'Then don't be so fucking arrogant,' Ethan shot back. 'Just because you've lived your life here so far untouched by the Angels doesn't mean that you're untouchable. They leave you alone because you stay out of their business, but Casey is their business. You hand her to Rosier and they'll smell a double-cross a mile off. You let me take her, tell them that I stole her right from under your nose and they'll back off. They already know I'm in London. They'll believe you.'

The dark air around Oscar thinned out, faded, as he inhaled and exhaled deeply, but the rage was still there, bristling under the surface.

'He has got a point, Berith,' Rosier croaked hoarsely, his voice veering more towards bull-frog than human, which was quite fitting seeing as he looked more amphibian than anything else.

It was Oscar who broke the stare-out with Ethan first.

Grabbing the bottle, he poured another drink, taking a long swig of neat vodka and running his tongue along his teeth afterwards. He topped it up again without a word and walked out from behind the bar, the glass still in his hand as he strolled slowly in front of the counter, trailing the fingers of his free hand along the edge and taking small sips as he went. When he reached the end, he stopped but didn't turn to face us.

'Why?' he called out.

'Why what?' Ethan replied, gruffly.

Oscar turned and raised the glass to his lips. Another sip. Another slow, deliberate pause.

'Why would you take the risk? Why her?' His eyes narrowed. 'What is she to you?'

Ethan sniffed dismissively. 'What can I say? I'm lonely.'

The joke was weak, ineffectual. He knew it, Oscar knew it, and I balanced precariously between them both, veering wildly from hope to despair and back again.

The other demon rolled the tip of his tongue over the point of one yellowed incisor, his lips curling back from his teeth as he tapped at the sides of the glass with one index finger.

'Okay,' he said, finally. 'Okay.'

'Okay?' Rosier spluttered into action, his eyes widening as he tried to shift his large frame off the stool. 'You can't be bloody serious? You're actually letting him have the girl? I can ask a lot for her, and you bloody know it. I mean, not like this, obviously.'

He gestured to me with one pudgy hand, dismissing my attire in the same way Oscar had. Cheeky bastard.

'Get her looking all nice and that, the way you told me she looked, and I can ask for anything in return. You gave me first dibs on her, Berith, don't you forget that.'

I felt my face burn and the anger igniting in my gut. How dare they? How dare Oscar? Pimping me out like I was a possession. Like I was his to give away to the highest fucking bidder. 

Clenching my fists, I went to step forward, but before I made even the slightest of moves, I felt the touch of Ethan's hand on mine. It was the lightest of touches, and so fleeting that for a moment I thought I'd made a mistake, but Oscar's all-seeing eyes had caught it, his steely gaze flickering there and back up again. He smiled thinly.

'I know I did, Ros, but it's alright, because if Ethan wants her, he's going to pay for her. Just like any other punter would. Ain't that right, son?'

They continued to lock eyes with each other, something unspoken passing between them, until finally Ethan rolled back his shoulders and sighed.

'Okay, fine,' he said, sounding exhausted. 'What is it this time? Some lost Fabergé Egg? The Scepter of Dagobert? The Second Temple Menorah? Oh no, wait, I found those already.'

'Yeah, you did, and you spent a good amount of time searching for them, if I recall,' Oscar said. 'But this time, you won't have to spend time searching because you already know where this particular item is.'

Ethan's body tensed, a jolt that seemed to hit his spine at the bottom and judder all the way up. 'I've already told you, I don't know...'

'You do know, so don't even think you can feed me that bullshit anymore!' Oscar's voice echoed through the room, anger creeping into his tone once again. 'You know where it is and you're going to get it for me.'

'You're asking the impossible,' Ethan insisted, shaking his head. 'And even if I could get it, I'm not going to. It doesn't belong to you.'

'Are you have a fucking bubble*, boy?' Oscar laughed. 'Nothing I ask you to acquire belongs to me. That's the whole bloody point. If it did, I wouldn't need you to get it for me, because I'd already have it, wouldn't I?'

Ethan's face flushed with spots of anger. 'You can ask for anything else. Anything. Not this.'

It was Oscar's turn to shrug, but I could see the irritation blazing across his features. He wasn't the type of man who'd accept the word no at the best of times, and anyone who said it to him was usually left with a couple of shattered kneecaps for their troubles. This wasn't one of those times. In fact, this was far from the best of times.

'I don't want anything else,' he said, gritting his teeth. 'And to be quite honest with you, it's a fucking travesty that you've left it where it is all these years.'

'It's better that it's there...'

'What?' Oscar said, his eyes widening. 'Locked in one of their vaults? You want to talk about what belongs to whom, well it certainly doesn't belong to them.' He practically spat out the word, his face twisting with revulsion. 'It's a dishonour, boy, that's what it is. In fact, it's fucking scandalous.'

'Oh, really? And what exactly are you going to do with it? Sell it to the highest bidder? Don't talk to me about dishonour, Berith, because you fucking reek of it.'

'I will treat it with the respect it deserves! The same respect you should give it,' Oscar boomed. 'I won't hide it away in a box in some dusty vault that no one's been inside for centuries. I won't pretend it doesn't exist. You dishonour it by denying its existence and you dishonour them.'

Silence broke through the noise, splintering it apart and leaving a huge void between the two demons as they glared at each other. A few awful, tension-drenched seconds passed and then Ethan broke into a wide grin, chuckling to himself as he dragged his fingers back through his short hair.

'Yeah, well,' he said, finally. 'I dishonoured them every day in life and I've dishonoured them every day since their deaths. Why should things be any different now?'

Oscar watched him, deep in thought, his long fingernail tapping against the side of the glass. Draining it, he put the tumbler down on the bar and smacked his lips together, glancing over at me.

'Casey, love, be a good girl and wait in my office for a bit, will ya? Ethan and I need to have a little chat. Business, you understand?'

He smiled, but I didn't reciprocate. He had to be kidding. After everything, he was still going to treat me like the little gopher. Like Davey's girl. He was going to send me on my way, and expect me to do what I was told, expect me to be quiet, expect me to sashay off to his office, like I was wearing nothing but a pair of knickers and a bunch of tenners stuffed into the elastic.

'Well, apparently I'm part of that business,' I said. 'And I don't bloody trust you, so if you think I'm going to walk myself into a trap in your office...'

'Oh, for fuck's sake, now is not the time for you to get on your fucking high horse, young lady. Haven't I got enough to contend with?' he said, disdainfully. 'It's alright. I give Ethan my word that you'll be okay. Now go on, scoot, otherwise I'll get Rosier here to escort you.'

Rosier, who'd been viewing the whole exchange between Oscar and Ethan with something that bordered on voyeuristic ecstasy, grinned almost manically, his pink tongue poking out from between his teeth. The thought of being anywhere alone with that man and his tongue made my insides want to shrivel up.

Ethan nodded at me. 'Go on, I'll sort this. I'll be there in a minute.'

I swallowed down my doubts. 'Fine,' I said. 'But if I end up trapped in one of his dodgy dimensions, having to dance a tacky routine with a rubber snake in some alternate, seedy, Groundhog Day, I'm going to be seriously pissed off with you.'

*

Oscar's office looked just as it did before, with one very notable exception.

It had the same dodgy-as-fuck 80's throwback décor. The same casting couch. The same pictures on the walls. The same drinks cabinet. The same kinetic desk toy.

It was what sat on the desk, next to the metal toy, that was a newly-installed feature to Oscar's little den of iniquity.

Scattered on a tray were about twenty to thirty small bags of powder.

I felt the pull immediately, a horrible cold yearning inside me that was almost parasitic in nature. It crawled and slithered, wound itself around my bones, strangled my muscles, not because this was my usual thing, mind you, because I'd never touched brown before – not once – but because with nothing else giving my body what it craved, this was like wandering into the bank vault and finding someone had left the safe open.

It wasn't like looking at a pile of smack. It was like looking at a pile of gold bullion, and I wanted to reach out and touch it.

Fuck, I wanted to touch it so bloody much.

Digging my nails into the palms of my clenched hands, I backed up and turned to face the other way, as if not looking at it would stop the thirst and silence the screaming in my veins. I sat down on the couch and then remembered the countless women who'd sat here, lain here, fixed the smiles on their faces as Oscar's long-nailed fingers trailed along soft, warm flesh. Standing up abruptly, I walked to the opposite end of the office, as far away from the desk as I could get and wrapped my arms around myself.

How long had I been in here now? Three, four minutes? Longer?

It felt like a bloody eternity.

I busied myself by studying the pictures on the walls, letting my eyes wander over faces I'd seen so many times already, having been a frequent visitor here. Oscar. Rita May. Oscar's old man, the one who'd knocked out that boxer whose name I couldn't even remember now, as my heart pounded like a bass drum in my chest. Now that I was really looking at the photos, it was evident that he wasn't Oscar's real dad. He was too tall, too heavy-set, his features were all wrong. Had he known Rita May's dirty little secret? Had he known that Oscar wasn't really his child? Had he known what he was?

My head swam with so many questions unanswered and yet all the time the nagging desire just kept on and on.

Turn around. Touch it. Take it. Fuuuck.

A drink. I could snag a drink from the cabinet. Pour myself something strong. Something that would numb the feeling a little. Take the edge off.

Oscar's decanter of favourite brandy sat on the counter. That's for special occasions, Casey sweetheart, he'd said to me once, when I'd pretended to admire it, while all the time wondering who the fuck still drank brandy from crystal decanters apart from posh people and Colonel Mustard from Cluedo, four hundred smackers a bottle, that is, and a four hundred pound cognac isn't just for any old drinking session let me tell you, you gotta treat it with the respect it deserves.

I stared at it, biting the skin around the edge of my fingernail.

'Up yours, Oscar,' I whispered. 'I'm going to respect the fuck out of this.'

I poured myself a large measure. Larger still. Drank. Relished the heat.

It wasn't going to be enough. Four hundred pounds a bottle and it wasn't worth shit to me. Not while the bassline pounded so strongly in my ears, not while the blood rushed to my head in waves so powerful that I wanted to drop to my knees and let myself drown in it all, let it take me under and hold me there until it filled my nose, my mouth, my throat.

Groaning, I pressed my head against the side of the cabinet and twisted so I could see the desk, the glass still clutched into my chest like a life-jacket I knew was never going to save me.

The door to the office clicked open suddenly, making me jump and I turned violently towards it to see Ethan standing in the doorway.

I froze, perfecting my rabbit in headlights look as the guilt choked me.

He smirked, his eyes instantly drawn to the glass in my hand and the decanter on the cabinet top. 'Better not let Berith see you've been at his Baron De Sigognac. The last person who did that ended up with a kitchen knife buried up to the hilt in their balls. Come on, it's time to go.'

Without waiting, and clearly expecting me to follow instruction, he disappeared back into the hallway and I put the glass down with a trembling hand and followed him out.

But not before I'd reached out and grabbed one of the bags and thrust it deep into the back of my jean pocket.

*

'Wait!' I called out to Ethan, as he opened the fire exit door, that no longer led outside, and began taking the stairs down to the small red room where the worm-hole entrance lay hidden somewhere within its scarlet walls.

He was moving fast, his footsteps echoing loudly in the narrow stairwell.

'Come on,' he urged, glancing back at me.

'But what about Oscar and Rosier?' I said, struggling to keep up with his pace and trying not to fall and tumble arse over tit down the steps. 'They're really just going to let me leave?'

'Yep, they are.'

He'd reached the room now, and I stumbled in after him, noting how the crimson light seemed to highlight dark shadows around his eyes and over his cheekbones. There was a heavy exhaustion about his features, like he'd just gone ten rounds and wasn't sure if he'd come out the winner or the loser.

'How come?' I asked, trying to catch my breath. 'Did you agree to get this artefact he wants?'

He nodded, a tinge of sadness tugging at the corners of his mouth.

'But you didn't want to do it. You said so.'

'It doesn't matter what I said, we managed to come to an agreement.' His hand found my waist and he pulled me against him. 'Hold on tight, this is going to be one Hell of a rocky ride.'

I wrapped my arms around his neck, my heart practically jumping up into my throat. 'What? Where are we going?'

Ethan grinned humourlessly.

'Rome'.

**************

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

One small translation for any non-Brits/non-Londoners:

*bubble = Cockney rhyming slang meaning 'laugh' eg. bubble bath = laugh, as in 'are you having a bubble, mate?' or 'are you have a laugh?' or 'are you joking?'

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please do help support Hedoschism by hitting the vote button and leaving a comment.

Linz xx